“You’ll find in times of great emotions in films, the characters almost always speak less words, not more. I count silence as a form of dialogue.”
David Freeman
“The perfect movie doesn’t have any dialogue. So you should always be striving to make a silent movie.”
David Mamet
On Film Directing
There’s a scene that comes to mind from Cast Away written by William Broyles, Jr. that’s a great example of emotionally silent dialogue, but unfortunately I couldn’t find it on You Tube. It’s on page sixteen of the script after Chuck (Tom Hanks) arrives home in Memphis after working his high pressured Fed Ex job in Moscow, Russia and meets Kelly (Helen Hunt).
INT. MEMPHIS STATE–BIOLOGY BLDG–NIGHT–MOMENTS LATER
Chuck walks down the hall toward where a WOMAN stands, her back to is, using a XEROX MACHINE. The clock above her says 1:35. A case of specimen jars along the wall.
The woman is KELLY, hair up, glasses on, dressed in no-nonsense jeans. We see her face in the green intermittent light. She examines each page as it comes out, scanning the writing, making a quick note on one of the charts. We hear Ka-Chunk, Ka-Chunk of the machine.
For a long moment we are on Chuck’s face as he stares at her. He’s just come from talking to Stan about Mary and, by implication, the fragility of life. He’s home from Russia. This is the woman he loves. Kelly senses his presence and turns to face him. A smile lights her face.
KELLY
It’s you…
She comes into his arms. As they hug, in the b.g. we hear the Ka-Chunk of the copier. Chuck begins to move to it, a slow, romantic dance to the beat of the Xerox. The machine stops. Kelley pushes a button. It starts again, and so does their dance.
And that’s it, half page of writing—two spoken words in a broken sentence— but so key to showing their relationship.
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